


left to our own devices

by sarsaparillia



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-29
Updated: 2012-05-29
Packaged: 2017-11-06 05:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/415507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarsaparillia/pseuds/sarsaparillia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Korra kissed Mako and the one time Mako had his shit together, although not necessarily in that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	left to our own devices

—

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**i;  
** ( _or that time they almost died_ )

She's breathing hard, on her knees, arms shaking with her head down. She's soaking wet, water dripping from her hair and she's nearly laughing, choking on thin air and thinner excuses.

And Mako lies on his back and stares at the sky.

"We almost died," he says. "Agni, we almost died."

"I got that," Korra huffs.

"How are we even alive?" Mako asks, and he's dazed, trying to figure out how he's still breathing when they'd been underwater for a good fifteen minutes. The stars swirl above his head in a merry dance of light and dark and—Koh take them, he's not feeling so good.

She's still laughing when she finally collapses down next to him. "I have no idea."

"What?"

"How we're alive. I have no idea. I couldn't breathe. I thought—" and she stops, sucks in air. Shakes her head, still grinning. "—I thought we were going to drown."

Mako nods fervently. "Me, too."

Korra pushes herself up a little bit to sit in a slouch as she wrung out her hair—by hand, and Mako thinks she might have forgotten that she was as much waterbender as anything else. He doesn't look at her as she shoves wet-dark locks away from her forehead, tips her head back, and stares at the sky.

"Tui," she murmurs, "I really thought we were done."

Gravel crunches underneath him as he shifts his head just enough to eye her in profile; the long line of her throat, the tilt of her chin, lips, nose, the dip of her eyes, up her forehead, then down the slicked back hair.

He gulps and thinks _you're beautiful and sort of terrifying, and you don't even know it_.

"Huh? Mako? You okay?" Korra turns bright blue eyes towards him and blinks.

"I—yeah. Fine," he says on the exhale, and she's still looking at him, mouth spreading into a slow wide smile, and yeah, Mako thinks he might actually have stopped breathing a little bit because this is Korra and she just doesn't _smile_ like that, not at anyone, and—

"You're such a _dork_ ," she chuckles.

And then she bends down and kisses him with her eyes closed, fire-hot and Mako can't really process because that's just what Korra does to him even when she's not trying and _wow_ , okay, fireworks, _that_ was new.

She pulls away and grins down at him. "What? We're alive, aren't we?"

"Yeah," he pants. "Yeah, we're alive."

—

**ii;  
** ( _or that time she punched Tahno in the face_ )

"Korra, you can't just— _no_ , oh Spirits, he's gonna _kill_ us—"

Bolin always tries to diffuse these situations, because when Korra's mad, she's _scary_. Mako's given up on even trying, because he knows exactly what's going to happen next—she's going to whistle for Naga, and Tahno's going to flail in terror, just like every _other_ time this happens.

Mako turns the page of his newspaper, and doesn't even look up.

Korra glares up Tahno's nose, hands on her hips. The air seethes around her, and she probably doesn't even realize it—somewhere along the way, air became the element that she reaches for when she's threatened.

(Mako has no idea how he knows that.)

"Back _off_ if you know what's good for you, Pretty Boy," Korra says, voice low and grating. She's almost smiling, and her eyes are dark and dangerous and yeah, Mako's seen that before, and he knows where this is going.

"Mako," Bolin mutters, and tugs on his brother's sleeve.

Mako ignores him entirely.

"Oooh, so _scary_ , Avatar. What're you going to do, call your little _friend_ on me?" Tahno says, nails-on-chalkboard. _He probably just flipped his hair_ , Mako thinks with a snort.

"No, Mako, seriously, you need to look," Bolin mutters again, and his voice is nervous.

Mako concentrates very hard on his newspaper.

"I don't _need_ to call Naga to deal with _you_ ," Korra spits.

Bolin's eyes go wide, and he tugs urgently on Mako's sleeve. "Mako, seriously, Korra's about to—"

"Get your hands _off_ of me!" she screeches.

Mako looks up just in time to watch Avatar Korra's fist connect with the cartilage of Tahno's nose. The _crunch_ makes the whole restaurant wince, and for a split-second, it is very, very quiet.

"We are _so done for_ ," Bolin whimpers.

And all hell breaks loose.

"WHAT DID YOU _DO_ —"

"TAHNO, ARE YOU OKAY—"

"MY _NOSE_ —"

"YOU _DESERVED_ IT—"

"YOU _BITCH_ —"

Mako thinks that that is _quite enough of that_. He's in the thick of the fight, and he loops an arm around her waist when she's not paying attention, fully intent on dragging her out of there before she actually does get hurt. She shrieks in his ear and he catches her wrist on fire, because, well, that would probably be painful.

Bolin is lost in the fray. Mako prays to every deity he knows that his brother is alright as he drags Korra outside into a darkened alley and out of harm's way.

"Let me _go_ ," she snarls. "Let me _go_ , let me go back in there and teach him the _lesson_ he's just _asking_ for—"

"No, Korra, calm down, listen to me, you have to calm down—" he starts, but cuts himself off when he realizes he doesn't have the concentration to keep her still and talk at the same time.

They stand together in the quiet and just breathe for a little while. Mako can feel her heart rate slowing as her rage drains.

"Let me _go_ , Mako," she says, finally.

She sounds a little calmer.

(Enough not to hurt him, anyway.)

Mako cautiously unwinds his arms from around her torso.

And of course, she shoves him backward against the opposite side of the alleyway and seals her mouth across his and yeah, Mako does that thing where his brain turns off.

"Thanks," she mumbles against his lips, "for not letting me do anything else stupid."

"It's fine," he says, and pulls her closer.

—

**iii;**  
( _or that time he woke up shaking_ )

The attic is dark when Mako jerks awake, breathing hard.

The dream tears at the inside of his throat, blocks up his lungs, and he can't—can't think—

( _I wonder how_ _ **experienced**_ _our young Avatar is… Well, she_ _ **is**_ _Water Tribe, no one can say we aren't_ —)

Mako slams his fist against the wall.

The pain brings him back.

"Agni," he says, and covers his face with his hands, shoulders trembling.

"Mmm… Mako? Wha's'going on?" Korra's voice comes from his left, thick with sleep but warming quickly, and the sheets bunch as she sits up.

"Didn't mean to wake you," he mutters through his fingers. He won't look at her. Can't.

"Hey," she breathes, "hey, is everything okay?"

"Spirits, Korra, I—"

Her arms come up to loop around his shoulders and Mako finds himself clinging to her, to this Avatar-girl-woman-with-blue-eyes, face pressed into her throat. He shudders once, twice, then goes still, and Korra kisses the top of his head over and over, and whispers "It's okay, I'm right here, I'm right here, it's okay, I promise it's okay."

He extricates himself from her arms slowly.

"Sorry," he says.

Korra stares him full in the eyes, dead-straight, no escape. She curls her palms around the sides of his face and tips her head just a little to the left. "Sorry? What for?"

"This. I shouldn't have woken you up."

"…What is _wrong_ with you?"

"What?" Mako's almost taken aback at the sudden venom in her voice.

"You heard me! What is _wrong_ with you _?_!"

"I—"

"You don't have to go through this stuff alone anymore, okay? How many times have I woken you up because I've had a nightmare or—or a panic attack or—whatever? How many times _?_! I'm your _girlfriend_ , I'm here, okay?"

Mako has no idea what to say.

It's sort of true, though. She does wake him up a lot in the middle of the night.

Korra drops her gaze to somewhere in the middle of his chest. "I'm here, okay? Here. Even when no one else is. I can handle your issues."

She's blushing, Mako thinks faintly, _I just made the Avatar blush_.

(That wasn't actually anything new.)

"Korra—" he tries again.

"No," she says, fierce-faced. "No, don't even go there right now. You are a huge moron, I don't even know what to do with you. Just shut up, okay? Shut up."

And then she's on top of him, hips ground down hard against his, and she's kissing him like both their lives depend on it.

Mako's brain goes _oh, okay_ , and turns off.

—

**iv;**  
( _or that other time they almost died_ )

She's not breathing.

Makoe doesn't know how he knows.

He just does.

She's not breathing.

Bleeding, skin scorched and stiff in the bones, it takes all of Mako's will to force himself across the ground over dusty pavement and broken glass to her side.

Everything hurts.

He does it anyway.

"Korra," he shakes her shoulder. She doesn't move, doesn't pull air into her lungs, doesn't do anything at all, and Mako cradles her head in his hand and whispers to her "please wake up. Wake up. You can't do this to me. Korra, wake up."

She doesn't.

He shakes her again, harder now, hard enough to rattle her bones, because she can't be, she's not, he will not accept that she's not alive.

They've lived through too much now, for her to be dead.

And he's about to shake her again (he'd keep shaking her forever, until her body cooled and the earth took her back), when her eyes snap open and she gasps and _Spirits above_ he has never been this relieved in his whole entire life.

"Hi," she says. "Are you—?"

Mako bends down and kisses her savagely.

(And yeah, his brain takes a vacation.)

"I thought you were dead," he manages when he finally gets his bearings back. "You can't—you can't _do_ things like that, Korra!"

"So did I," she shrugs her shoulders and doesn't even seem to notice the shards of glass slicing into her skin. "But I do things like that all the time."

"Not like _that_!" Mako's voice cracks. "You almost—you could've—"

"But I didn't," she says, and she's grinning that stupid grin and he just wants to _shake_ her. "And we're okay now. The whole world is okay."

"Says _you_ ," Mako grumbles.

Korra laughs, and it vibrates all the way through his body. "Says me."

Mako kisses her again, if only to shut her up.

—

**v;**  
( _or that time they sort of got married_ )

Mako doesn't pay much attention to weddings.

Neither does Korra, for that matter, and they both would have preferred something low-key, something quiet and private and not— _this_.

It's mostly only a debacle because the media got wind of the wedding before Bolin and Ikki got their hands on the affair, and suddenly everyone who was anyone just absolutely _needed_ an invitation to the marriage of the Avatar.

And so it's only after the ceremony, when they're away together hiding from the well-wishers, that Mako turns and looks at her out of the corner of his eye and goes:

"Next time, we elope."

And Korra grins, blue eyes wide, and says "There isn't going to _be_ a next time."

"What?"

"You're stuck with me. Sorry, dude."

And Mako doesn't know quite what to say, and he opens his mouth to try and figure it out but Korra ducks forward, still grinning, and kisses him very, very softly.

"Okay?" she asks.

"Okay," he says.

—

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_fin_.


End file.
